- Contributed by听
- metcalfe
- People in story:听
- Caroline, Mary and Christine Metcalfe
- Location of story:听
- Blackheath, London and Checkenden, Berkshire
- Background to story:听
- Civilian
- Article ID:听
- A9031105
- Contributed on:听
- 31 January 2006
As a follow-up to my twin sister's story I would like to add another description of an event connected with the V2 bombings during the last year of the war. In the late spring of 1945 my primary school 'All Saints' which was situated in Blackheath near Blackheath Village, London was rocked by bomb blast. Very soon after the bomb blast our class teacher told my sister and me we could go home. I remember that although I welcomed the suggestion I thought it slightly odd that we were being let out of school early and nobody else was. When we arrived home we discovered that our mother had been injured by the V2 rocket which had rocked our school. She had been in the butcher's and had been injured on the scalp and face by broken glass. She had been saved from worse injury by the large meat safe in the butcher's. My father who was in the army and stationed at Tilbury arrived home soon afterwards and was able to be of great practical help - making tea, tending to injuries - although my mother had already received some first aid from the emergency services. Within ten days or so we were evacuated to a cottage in Checkenden, a small village in Berkshire not far from Reading. I remember it as one of the happiest few weeks of my life. The cottage was small with a garden full of flowers and bordered a cherry orchard where I remember climbing the trees and gorging myself with the most delicious fruit. In the sitting-room was a pianola which both my sister and I delighted inp laying. It was the greatest fun and provided us with hours of amusement. We went to the local village school and on the way there frightened ourselves by pretending there were German spies hiding in the woods bordering our path who would capture us if we weren't constantly on our guard. We made friends with the gardener of the big house and his friends Jenny, the cook and housekeeper. Jenny, we learnt, had escaped from the Germans in 1939 and would have been sent to a concentration camp because she was a jew. She shared the cottage with the gardener and I was aware that this was not approved of because they weren't married. They were both very kind and delighted in having children about the place. My mother often took us to Reading where we had picnics on the bank of the Thames, hired a rowing boat and I swam across the river having been dared to do so by my brother. The war, bombs and London seemed a long way away. A slight uneasiness about the safety of my father who was still in the army helping to organise, as we later learnt, the D-day landings, was the only thing that disturbed this summer of happiness.
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